The longterm partner of late British broadcaster Kenneth Kendall committed suicide after struggling to overcome his grief, an inquest has heard. Kendall, the first newsreader to appear on BBC television in 1955 and a longrunning regular on the network, died aged 88 after suffering a stroke last November (12).
His civil partner Francis Fear was found dead at their home on the Isle of Wight in April (13).
An inquest into his death has heard Fear left a note to his loved ones explaining he couldn't continue without Kendall, who he had been with for 23 years.
Isle of Wight assistant coroner John Matthews recorded a verdict of suicide by hanging, adding that the 55 year old had "suffered a tremendous amount of grief".

Chris Nashawaty
Who's the one person who connects such different Hollywood artists as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Ron Howard, and Jack Nicholson? The man, the legend, Roger Corman. In his new book Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses, Chris Nashawaty presents on oral history of Corman's career told by the B-movie maestro himself and also by the many marquee names who got their start in the business working on his fast-pace, low-budget productions. But it's also something more. It includes in-depth aesthetic appreciations of ten of Corman's movies, which, taken together, make a compelling case for Corman as an artist. Nashawaty's book, available now from Amazon and Barnes &amp; Noble, started as an article in 2009 for Entertainment Weekly, where he's a film critic. (Full Disclosure: Nashawaty was a colleague of mine when I worked at EW.) That article was pegged to Corman receiving a lifetime achievement Academy Award. "I'd interviewed him various times over the years, and he's always been a good interview," Nashawaty says. "He knows how to tell a story, and he's always got a quote handy. But with this book project I got to sit down with him in person and spend some real time with him and ask him about the whole course of his career." Nashawaty tells us how Corman helped create modern Hollywood.
Hollywood.com: How did you first discover Roger Corman and become a fan? Chris Nashawaty: Well, look, when you tell people that you’re a film critic they expect for you to say you grew up on classy movies and Oscar-winning movies, and the fact is I grew up watching monster movies and Piranha and all sorts of other movies that your parents don’t want you to watch. Roger Corman was a name I just kept recognizing in the credits and it wasn’t until I started working at Entertainment Weekly that I started to dig a little deeper and realized that there are 400 of these movies that he’s attached to. When you discover a great director like Stanley Kubrick and you say “I’m going to watch every Stanley Kubrick movie!” that’s only going to take you 10 movies and then you’re done, but Corman is the gift that keeps on giving.
HW: You really dive in deep to give an aesthetic appreciation of his movies, which is unique because often the artistic value of his movies is ignored. He’s thought of more as a mogul or a producer. Do you think he’s generally neglected as an artist? CN:He’s very much overlooked as a director. I think people focus too much on his drive-in movies or exploitation movies — or only focus on the people he mentored — and don’t think about him as a film stylist. And he made some really good movies. Sure, he started off making some disposable, quickie, cheap drive-in movies about atomic monsters, and those are fine. Some of them are even very good. But it wasn’t until the ‘60s that he began to find his voice and develop a style, particularly in his Edgar Allen Poe adaptations. He directed most of them beginning with House of Usher in 1960 and they’re very atmospheric, much like the films Hammer was making in England at the time. They’re Gothic horror movies, they’re moody and colorful, in large part because he assembled an incredible crew. Nicolas Roeg is the DP on The Tomb of Ligeia. So to break up the oral history of his life with all the racy stories, I picked two of his movies per decade and wrote an essay about each. They’re movies that speak to me personally, like Masque of the Red Death, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and Boxcar Bertha.
He also made this movie in 1962 called The Intruder starring William Shatner that was way ahead of its time. It was about segregation in the South. It was a very personal film for Corman and really well made too. Shatner plays a rabble-rousing racist who goes to a Southern town and whips the locals into a frenzy about integration in the schools. It’s a very progressive film about a hot topic that the Hollywood studios wouldn’t even have touched until another five years with In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and even then not very forcefully. But this is a movie that’s very explosive. Ironically, it’s his most personal film and the only one he lost money on in his career.
HW: Do you have a particular favorite of his movies? CN: It's probably a tie. There's Masque of the Red Death, which is my favorite of his Poe movies. It’s just so twisted and gorgeous, it’s like a Bergman film made into an exploitation horror movie. It’s great. And the other one is probably the first Corman movie I ever saw, which is Piranha. I remember seeing that in the theater when I was really young, I don’t know how or why my parents thought it was a good idea to take me to see a movie called Piranha. But they did, God bless them, and that movie has just always stuck with me. It was Joe Dante’s first movie, and it had a script by John Sayles. It’s a great Jaws ripoff about killer fish turning people into mincemeat.
HW: That seems to be a very sore point for him, that he lost money on The Intruder in particular. CN: Yeah, he mortgaged his house to make that movie. It was that personal to him. And the fact that it wasn’t a success really stung him, deeply. If it had been a success, it’s interesting to think what kind of films he might have made afterward. But it taught him a lesson that maybe this whole personal filmmaking thing wasn’t necessarily something that was going to work for him. Which isn’t to say that his subsequent movies aren’t personal — they are — but he never tried to say something in the same way that he did in that movie again.
HW: You make the argument that he was always ahead of the curve — certainly on race relations as in The Intruder — but also when it came to recognizing the burgeoning youth market. CN: You know the teenager is a very ‘50s concept. The whole idea of young kids being able to spend money and go to the drive-ins, that was something that didn’t exist until the ‘50s and I don’t think Hollywood really recognized them as a real lucrative market. But Corman did. Some of the safer movies that were being aimed at teens at the time, the Beach Party/Beach Blanket Bingo movies, they were fun and campy but they weren’t movies that teenagers necessarily wanted to see…they weren’t about rebellion really. But Corman recognized there was a whole demographic that was being ignored. He saw that, pounced on it, and made biker movies like The Wild Angels and just movies that were showing what was going on in society before anyone else was.
HW: Now, fifty years later, so much of Hollywood filmmaking as a whole is geared toward teenagers. People often credit Jaws and Star Wars for creating youth-oriented blockbuster culture, but do you think Corman deserves his share of recognition for helping create modern Hollywood? CN: I do, yeah, in a lot of ways. And not just that one. There are several different moments where he recognized what was going on faster than the slower-on-the-uptake studios did. One of them was noticing there was an underserved teen market for movies. Another was much later in the ‘80s, when the country was being overrun by videostores, the VHS market was not one the studios exploited right away. It was Corman, who’d been sort of squeezed out of making movies who rejuvenated his business by recognizing there was this VHS market. He made these straight-to-video movies because he knew mom-and-pop video shops were hungry for product. So he’d make straight-to-video movies and put the most lurid, garish, sexy cover he could put on them, with the movie being almost an afterthought, and they’d sell like hotcakes.
Chris Nashawaty
HW: Looking at all the great Corman posters from the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s featured in your book, it hits home how much the art of movie posters seems to have been lost. CN: I agree. He didn’t have budgets and he didn’t have stars so all he really had to sell a movie was a great poster. In a way it was the purest form of advertising you can imagine: you make a great poster and you slap an incredible tagline on it. My favorite is for Angels Hard As They Come, from 1971, and it’s a biker movie starring Scott Glenn and Gary Busey. The tagline is “Big men with throbbing machines and the girls who take them on.” I mean, that’s a great come on. It’s total Barnum &amp; Bailey “Sell! Sell! Sell!” He was just a master at making posters and trailers that were in a way better than the movies themselves.
HW: Sometimes the alumni of Corman University speak about him with some snark, but generally there seems to be real affection there. Why do you think that is? CN: Once these people went on to have legitimate careers they looked back on their films for Corman as their salad days. It was a great time — they were young, they weren’t getting paid a lot of money, but they got to make a movie. I think we forget how hard, and how rare, that is. You had to work your way up the ladder and studios were closed shops to a lot of people. Corman took the best and brightest out of the film schools and said, “Hey, I’m going to exploit you, I’m going to pay you nothing, I’m going to work you to the bone, but I’m going to give you the shot to make a movie.” And I think a lot of those people who went on to work for big studios realized that they didn’t know how good they had it when they were making movies for Roger Corman because he didn’t give them endless notes or micromanage what they were doing.
HW: You also argue that Corman is the single greatest connecting thread between Old Hollywood and New Hollywood. CN: I can’t think of anyone else who has had the same sort of longevity and is as much of a throughline of the past 60 years of Hollywood. Corman may not be a household name, but he is probably the least known, most influential figure in the last half century of Hollywood. And he’s still making movies today for Syfy. Nobody else has had the reach or impact that he’s had. Just look at the famous people who got their starts in his films, everyone from Jack Nicholson to Scorsese to James Cameron to Coppola, if you take all of those people out of the history of Hollywood, if Corman had not given them their break, the movie industry as we know it today would not exist.
Chris Nashawaty
HW: And he created an independent model of film production that anticipated the independent film revolution by decades. CN: Corman was really the only one I can think of, maybe more recently Miramax, who gave the major studios a run for their money. Because there had been poverty row independent studios since the start of Hollywood, but they could come and go. Between the first company he worked for, American International Pictures, and then his own company New World Pictures, he streamlined and refined what independent filmmaking could be. And I don’t think he gets enough credit for that.
HW: Do you think it would be possible for there to be a Roger Corman today? CN: I don’t think it’s possible for there to be a Roger Corman today because, in a way, anybody can make a movie now. And a lot of people who shouldn’t be making movies are now, because it’s so easy. You can make a movie with your iPhone. But Corman is a singular example of someone who had the genius to make movies that looked like real movies and have them make money. I don’t think you can make the quantity and the quality of movies that he made today.
HW: Do you think Corman will like your book? CN: I think so, because all of the people I interviewed offer up their love letters to him in a way, even though he comes in for some gentle ribbing about how cheap he was. I think he’s treated fairly, though, and his career is celebrated. My favorite quote in the whole book is in the introduction, and it’s from Ron Howard when he was making his first movie as a director, for Corman, called Grand Theft Auto. Corman was very tight on the budget with him, and Ron Howard needed some more extras for which Corman wouldn’t pony up any more money. So Ron Howard was despondent, but Corman walked up to him and said, “Ron, know this. If you do a good job for me on this picture, you’ll never have to work for me again.” Sure, Howard’s recollection of that pokes fun at him a bit, but the underlying message was “I’m giving you a shot and if you do a good job you’ll be able to graduate beyond me.” It was up to you to make something of yourself, to show what you’ve got.
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Sir Elton John is among a number of stars who have spoken out in support of Pope Francis after the Catholic leader was named Man of the Year by editors of an Italian magazine. The new pontiff was awarded the title by Italy's Vanity Fair, just four months after he ascended to the papacy, and the Rocket Man hitmaker was asked for his thoughts on the selection.
Sir Elton, who has previously claimed religion promotes "hatred and spite against gays", was full of praise for Pope Francis, insisting he has the potential to help modernise the Catholic Church.
He tells the publication, "Francis is a miracle of humility in the era of vanity... This Pope seems to want to bring the Church back to the ancient values ​​of Christ and at the same time, (bring it into) the 21st century. If you will reach out and touch the children, the women, the men who live with HIV and AIDS - often alone, and hidden by the silence - his beacon of hope will bring more light than any advancement of science, because no drug has the power of love "
Opera star Andrea Bocelli was also among stars who contributed to the piece on Pope Francis, telling the magazine the religious leader is "truly a gift from God".

There are a few easy jokes to be cracked about the possibility of a Charlie Kaufman-scripted Slaughterhouse-Five film adaptation — a concept that was proposed by Guillermo del Toro in a discussion with the Telegraph (via The Playlist), when the director announced his desire to helm this project with the visionary screenwriter at his side. What's it going to be, a movie about making a movie about Slaughterhouse-Five? Will it be told from the perspective of a struggling Kurt Vonnegut, who dives literally into the world of his classic novel in order to enliven his haphazard ideas?
When it comes to creative forces that have such distinct reputations as does Kaufman, expectations like these, facetious or not, are understandable. But the writer is hardly capable of one thing alone. There are a few Kaufman titles that people seldom bring up in assessment of the screenwriter's behemoth contribution to contemporary cinema: Human Nature, a bizarre evolution-themed comedy and his first feature pairing with director Michel Gondry; The Trouble with Larry, a television program about a man (Bronson Pinchot, no less) dragged off to live in the wilderness; even Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is often overshadowed by his trifecta of brilliance — Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But the point is, Kaufman can work wonders even outside of his meta, genre-bending milieu.
Although his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York fits snugly within the Kaufman framework, it is a good deal more grim than his previous, almost fantastically comic projects, showcasing the creative genius' (often pigeonholed as the movies-about-movies-about-movies guy) capability with new ideas and themes. Beyond the grandeur exemplified by his past works is that represented by his impressive ability to show off this progress with each new film, a fact that makes his potential attachment to Slaughterhouse-Five so terribly exciting.
Why does Adaptation. stand out in defining Charlie Kaufman's genus of writing? Simply, because it was so new, so inventive, and so spectacularly well done. But it's not all he's given us, and is not all he can do. With films like Frank or Francis and Anomalisa on the way, and this new project in the mix, we look to be seeing more out of the writer might fit into our rigid supply of affectionate movies-about-movies-about-movies jokes. In other words, we're gonna need some new material.
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Late Pope John Paul II has been cleared for sainthood by current Catholic leader Pope Francis. John Paul II, who died in 2005, will be canonised along with another Pope, John XXIII, who passed away in 1963. No date has been set, but the ritual will reportedly take place later this year (13).

You don’t have to be a Shakespeare buff to enjoy Joss Whedon's modern adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Filmed at Whedon’s house in only 12 days with a cast of his friends from various past projects, the movie stays true to the playwright's comedy, but places his prose in a more relatable setting. Unlike another Shakespeare adaptation that keeps the original language but uses a modern setting, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, Whedon's black-and-white interpretation is more casual and subtle.
Although the dialogue may be a bit hard to follow for those who aren't familiar with the play, the actors deliver their lines in such a way that makes their intent clear. You can understand when they are teasing, when they are fighting, and when they are being sarcastic (and there is a lot of sarcasm). They aren't giving dramatic performances on a stage; they are having normal conversations with each other that just happen to be spoken in flowery language.
As it turns out, many of today's romantic comedy tropes are found in the 400-year-old text. Full-of-himself playboy Benedick (Alexis Denisof) and independent, quick-witted Beatrice (Amy Acker) despise each other and are constantly bickering. Even if you haven’t read the play, I think you can guess what happens between them. The plot also includes a called-off wedding between Beatrice's cousin Hero (Jillian Morgese) and Claudio (Fran Kranz). Of course, there are elements of the story that wouldn't make sense in contemporary society, like Hero faking her death due to some big blow-up that arose because she might not be a virgin. But while there isn't always a happy ending in Shakespeare, for this rom-com, it's basically a given.
Much of the cast was already quite familiar with Shakespeare, because Whedon has hosted many readings of his plays over the years (one of which inspired this version of Much Ado). It's as though the audience was invited to one of Whedon's get-togethers... only there are also trapeze artists there for some reason. For Whedon fanatics, it's fun to see who the director rounded up to star in the film. (Look, it's Wesley! And Mal! And Agent Coulson!) Denisof and Acker pull off some physical comedy as they eavesdrop on conversations about each other, and Nathan Fillion is great in a small part as police officer Dogberry. It's obvious that the cast, as well as Whedon, have a sincere appreciation for Shakespeare's original work, but also had a fun time giving it their own twist.
4/5
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When the stakes are high — like, Armageddon high — the clean-shaven look won't really cut it: what you need in any apocalyptic adventure is a moustache. And lo and behold, Rob Corddry dons one hell of a nose neighbor in these new, exclusive pics from Rapture-Palooza. Corddry's character Mr. House teams up with his son Ben (John Francis Daley) and the film's heroine Lindsey (Anna Kendrick) to take on the formidable force of the Anti-Christ... played by none other than Craig Robinson, Corddry's Hot Tub Time Machine compadre.
These images depict Robinson in truly hellish form: covered in blood, sprouting horns, and spreading propaganda via cheap posters. Check out the pics, and catch Rapture-Palooza in theaters and VOD on June 7.
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Twenty-five years ago, the world was introduced to a charming supernatural villain with impeccable fashion sense; truly the ghost with the most. Don’t remember his name? We’ll give you a hint. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice…just for good measure, we’re going to stop right there.
So many aspects of Beetlejuice have become iconic, and not the least of those is the direction and visual signature of Tim Burton. One can hardly imagine Beetlejuice without Burton’s influence, but the fact of the matter is that Burton wasn’t the first choice to direct the film.
It happens quite a bit in Hollywood; deals are made and deals fall through. A studio’s first choice to helm a picture isn’t always the best choice, nor does it pan out. So who was Beetlejuice’s original director? What other horror properties experienced a change in the director’s chair prior to release?
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1,2, Beetlejuice Is Coming For You
Prior to Tim Burton signing on to direct Beetlejuice, the studio was looking at someone who’d helmed far more intense horror titles up to that point. That’s right, Mr. Nightmare on Elm Street himself, Wes Craven was originally attached to direct. It’s hard to contemplate what a Craven Beetlejuice would have looked like, but considering an original draft of the script was far more horror-centric, with the titular character portrayed as a winged reptilian demon, one can see how Craven might have been a suitable candidate. If nothing else, Beetlejuice would’ve said “b**ch” a fair amount more.
Never Let Me Howl
The 2010 reboot of The Wolfman couldn’t have suffered more setbacks if they were actually only able to shoot during full moons. It was slated for release in 2007, but a number of problems and a change in director mid-way through kept it out of theaters until 2010. Though Joe Johnston is credited on the poster, it was originally Mark Romanek who landed the gig. Romanek made a big splash with his independent sci-fi film Never Let Me Go, but after butting heads with Universal over the budget, he had no problem letting The Wolfman go. Among its many other production woes, The Wolfman replaced Beetlejuicecomposer Danny Elfman’s entire score at the last minute.
Life Almost Found A Way
Jurassic Park doesn’t really qualify as a horror film, and that was mostly because director Steven Spielberg wanted the movie to be an event the whole family could share. That’s not to say it didn’t give some of us younger viewers nightmares when it was first released, but given who came close to landing the job, Jurassic Park could qualify as a Disney film by comparison. It turns out James Cameron also had his eyes on the rights to Michael Crichton’s novel, but Spielberg got there first. Cameron mentioned that his version would have been much, much nastier. Given some of the things that happen in the book, that wouldn’t have been terribly difficult. The ironic thing here is that Cameron’s first feature film directing gig was Piranha II: The Spawning, on which he was a replacement for Miller Drake.
RELATED: 'Jurassic Park 4' Has Found a Director
In Space, No One Can Hear You Cut Corners
Piranha II producer Roger Corman, is a legend in the film industry; for better or worse. On the one hand, he launched the careers of several highly notable artists including Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, and Francis Ford Coppola. On the other hand, he had a tendency toward focusing more on the bottom line than on artistic integrity. He was very much looking forward to capitalizing on the Star Wars craze by producing a script by Dan O’Bannon called Alien, but he cut one too many corners for O’Bannon’s liking and the screenwriter ended up selling to, fittingly, 20th Century Fox. A year later, Corman would release instead Battle Beyond the Stars, a sci-fi retelling of The Seven Samurai, as his alternative Star Wars cash-in.
Possessed Of Many Options
Though The Exorcist is haled as one of the greatest and scariest horror movies of all time, the list of directors considered before William Friedkin is enough to make your head… well, you know. John Boorman (Deliverance) was initially approached, but thought the movie was too cruel towards children. He would however return to direct Exorcist II: The Heretic. Stanley Kubrick was interested, but balked when the studio wouldn’t allow him to also produce the movie. The Last Picture Show’s Peter Bogdonovich was also considered, but he too passed. Funny enough, when Morgan Creek tried to make an Exorcist prequel in 2004, they didn’t just change directors midway through, they shelved initial filmmaker Paul Schader’s version once it was completed and shot an entirely new film with Renny Harlin in charge. That’s the reason you can now track down and watch Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.
We’re Gonna Need A Better Director
We’ve heard about Cameron almost landing a gig that ultimately went to Steven Spielberg, i.e. Jurassic Park, but what about a Spielberg film that almost went to someone else? Originally, Tootsie producer Dick Richards was set to direct the big screen adaptation of Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws. The reason for his dismissal from the project had to do with his affinity for marine mammals. He evidently wanted to change the antagonistic creature from a shark to a whale. While the parallels between Quint and Captain Ahab are striking, one could understand why the producers didn’t want to go full Melville with the film.
[Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures]
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Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo might be traveling down that holiday roooo-oooo-aaaa-d one more time. According to Variety, the Vacation stars are in talk to reprise their roles as iconic 80s couple (and, okay fine, the 90s if you count Vegas Vacation, which you definitely shouldn't) Clark and Ellen Griswold.
The two would meet up with their now-grown son Rusty (played by Ed Helms having his first go as Griswold kid) and his wife (played by Christina Applegate) who are visiting them during a stop on a road trip. Clark will, no doubt be doing something to "fix" the house and Ellen willing lovingly roll her eyes...but where the hell is Audrey?! Hollywood.com reached out to Chase's rep for comments, but they were immediately available for a statement. D'Angelo's rep told us that the actress is, in fact, in talks.
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While the film — which is being written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Horrible Bosses) — will be a star vehicle for Helms, you just couldn't have a Vacation movie without Clark and Ellen. Even if it is, as Variety reports, just for a cameo. During an interview with Hollywood.com Goldstein assured fans that the upcoming reboot is "a legitimate updating of the franchise." Either way, it's a pretty safe bet that Randy Quaid isn't going to be on board to bring back Uncle Eddie.
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[Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures]
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Nosiness is far from an admirable virtue, but can it also be hazardous to your health? Sometimes you don’t even have to be actively prying into someone else’s affairs to be burdened with unfortunate truth. The fact is that the simple act of catching a glimpse, or overhearing a few words, can jeopardize your ability to continue to utilize those senses as a living organism. In Brad Anderson’s The Call, Halle Berry plays a 911 operator who overhears a serial killer claiming his next victim. Years later, traumatized from not being able to save the woman on the other end of the line, she again finds herself on the phone with the killer’s new prey.
Throughout the course of cinema, there have been several films that have served as a warning against knowing too much. These voyeur thrillers have been crafted by some of the best directors and featured a slew of astounding performers. We thought we’d alert you to some of these films with a series of clips. View at your own risk.
Rear Window
Probably the best example of this type of film, and a highly regarded classic, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window asks us to consider how well we really know our neighbors. Jimmy Stewart plays a photographer who, due to a broken leg, suddenly finds himself whiling away his afternoons staring out the window. He becomes convinced that his neighbor across the courtyard has murdered his wife. Is the man across the way a killer, or is our idle hero’s flashbulb going dim? Rear Windowis the standard for voyeur thriller, and Hitch’s masterful direction makes this as much a gorgeous love story as it is a taut work of suspense.
Witness
Beholding something as terrible as a murder is traumatic enough, but when the witness to that murder is a small child, and those responsible are out to silence him, a hero needs to intervene. Luckily for our titular witness, Harrison Ford is one the case. Witness has the rare distinction of falling within the voyeur thriller mold, streamlining the genre in fact with its simplified conceit, and also functioning as a fish-out-of-water dramedy. Ford must enter the Amish community from which our pint-sized lead originates, and has trouble conforming to some of their principles; not raising one’s hands in anger for example.
Blow Out
Brian De Palma is an avid fan of the great Alfred Hitchcock, and several of De Palma’s films hit upon the same themes as did Hitch’s masterpieces. In Blow Out, De Palma re-mixes Rear Window into the story of a movie sound engineer who inadvertently records evidence of a murder. He works obsessively to get his vital information into the right ears, but no one seems to want the tapes to surface. The film is incredibly tense and superbly performed by a young John Travolta, but it is the music and the ending that make Blow Out a truly great film.
Sorry, Wrong Number
Have you ever been so sick that you couldn’t get out of bed? Have you ever been laid-up in bed and accidentally overheard a murder being planned? Sure, that’s a slightly less common occurrence, but that is precisely the situation faced by Barbara Stanwyck in the 1948 thriller Sorry, Wrong Number. The invalid woman’s phone line gets crossed and she overhears two men finalizing the details of a ghastly deed. Based on a radio play, Sorry, Wrong Number plays directly upon the fear of helplessness and isolation. If the film were remade today, it is likely the antiquated crossed phone lines would be replaced with an email plot device. Sorry, Wrong Inbox?
The Conversation
Seven years prior to Blow Out, Francis Ford Coppola gave us his own story about a fateful listener. The Conversation stars Gene Hackman as a professional eavesdropper, hired by countless clients to obtain incriminating audio. His moral ambiguity is tested when he begins to realize that a couple he has put under surveillance may be the target of a murder. The film delves deeply into the idea of paranoia, and the irony of a privacy-invader becoming consumed with the fear of his own privacy being jeopardized. In this clip, he furiously looks for the bug he knows must be in his apartment.
[Photo Credit: TriStar Pictures]
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